a formula he came up with last year during the debt ceiling debate. some republicans have said that the treasury department could prioritize payment and minimize the impact of default. charles joins us from chicago, independent line. caller: good morning. a lot of studies of different financial instruments and things. a recent study i did spans from 1942-2012. the best used to judge inflation is simply an automobile. they cost $800 in 1940. a similar automobile today could you bought for $22,000. that is 2750% inflation. after every war, we have gigantic inflation. unless we are going to take extreme austerity to put us into a massive depression, we inflate out of it, and we also live quite well. to give you an example, if i got an ice cream cone in 1940, it would cost one dollar 46 cents today. all things are a line. all we have to do after wars is inflate out of it, pay off the debt with devalued currency, and that goes for all global currencies. we should not be having a debate about the debt ceiling. i want to make one other remark. what really st